snake
See also: Snake
English edit
Alternative forms edit
- (internet slang, childish, jocular) snek
Etymology edit
From Middle English snake, from Old English snaca (“snake, serpent, reptile”), from Proto-West Germanic *snakō (“snake”) (compare German Low German Snake, Snaak (“snake”), dialectal German Schnake (“adder”), Swedish snok (“grass snake”), Icelandic snákur (“snake”)), derived via Proto-Germanic *snakô from Proto-Germanic *snakaną (“to crawl”) (compare Old High German snahhan), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)neg- (“to crawl; a creeping thing”). Cognate with Sanskrit नाग (nāgá, “snake”)). Doublet of nāga.
Pronunciation edit
- (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: snāk, IPA(key): /sneɪk/
Audio (RP) (file) Audio (GA) (file) Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -eɪk
Noun edit
snake (plural snakes)
- A legless reptile of the suborder Serpentes with a long, thin body and a fork-shaped tongue.
- 1892, Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates[1]:
- The man writhed like a trampled snake, and a red foam bubbled from his lips.
- 1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 263:
- After dark the train is a lighted snake, as, even when the passengers' lights are out, each carriage has a side-light in the middle just under the eaves.
- A treacherous person; a rat.
- 1838, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby[2]:
- Mrs. Kenwigs was horror-stricken to think that she should ever have nourished in her bosom such a snake, adder, viper, serpent, and base crocodile, as Henrietta Petowker.
- 2021, Peter McKenna, 5:51 from the start, in Kin, season 1, episode 2, spoken by Frank Kinsella (Aidan Gillen):
- Well, if it was Moore, he's a fucking snake.
- A person who acts deceitfully for social gain.
- A tool for unclogging plumbing.
- Synonyms: auger, plumber's snake
- A tool to aid cable pulling.
- Synonym: wirepuller
- (UK, Australia) A flavoured jube (confectionary) in the shape of a snake.
- (slang) Trouser snake; the penis.
- Synonym: trouser snake
- (mathematics) A series of Bézier curves.
- (cartomancy) The seventh Lenormand card.
- (MLE, MTE) An informer; a rat.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:informant
- Gem’s a snake for Kamale, man.
- 2017 April 7, “War Dub”, performed by Little T (Josh Tate):
- Yo, bare people and the snakes, yeah, they're just grass / Next minute you're the mate, yeah / Next day stab in the back
- (finance, historical) Short for snake in the tunnel.
- 2001, W. Bonefeld, The Politics of Europe: Monetary Union and Class, page 69:
- The snake failed to provide an anchor for currency stability and, through it, disinflation.
- Short for black snake (“firework that creates a trail of ash”).
Derived terms edit
- Aesculapian snake
- as mad as a cut snake
- ball snake
- bastard horn snake
- beer snake
- Big Bend patchnose snake
- black pepper snake
- black snake
- blind snake
- blue-bellied black snake
- Boettger's two-headed snake
- brown snake
- carpet snake
- caution to snakes
- cherish a snake in one's bosom
- chicken snake
- coffee snake
- come up snake eyes
- come up with snake eyes
- common purple-glossed snake
- Congo snake
- coral snake
- corn snake
- crayfish snake
- crooked as a barrel of snakes
- De Kay's brown snake
- De Kay's snake
- dice snake
- draft snake
- drain the snake
- earth snake
- Eastern indigo snake
- eleven-striped blind snake
- fangtooth snake-eel
- fierce snake
- file snake
- Futsing wolf snake
- gardener snake
- garden snake
- garter snake
- glass snake
- go snake
- grass snake
- green snake
- harlequin snake
- hognose snake
- hoop snake
- horned snake
- indigo snake
- Jamaican blind snake
- Japanese snake blenny
- Jewnited Snakes
- joint snake
- king snake
- ladder snake
- large-headed water snake
- leopard snake
- lyre snake
- mad as a cut snake
- marsh snake
- milk snake
- mulga snake
- night snake
- olive sea snake
- one-eyed snake
- one-eyed trouser snake
- parrot snake
- patchnose snake
- penis snake
- pilot snake
- pine snake
- pine woods snake
- pipe snake
- plumbing snake
- polishing snake
- queen snake
- rainbow snake
- rat snake
- rattle snake
- rattlesnake
- red-bellied black snake
- red snake
- ribbon snake
- rock snake
- sand snake
- scarlet snake
- screaming snake case
- sea snake
- shadow snake
- short-toed snake eagle
- small-scaled snake
- smooth green snake
- smooth snake
- Snake
- snake and pygmy pie
- snake bean
- snakebite
- snake cactus
- snake case
- snake-cased
- snake charmer
- snake charming
- snake cucumber
- snake dance
- snake doctor
- snake draft
- snake eagle
- snake-eating cobra
- snake eel
- snake-eel
- snake eyes
- snake fear
- snake feeder
- snake fence
- snake-fright
- snake fright
- snake fruit
- snake gourd
- snake-grass
- snake gun
- snake hawk
- snakehead
- snake-in-the-box problem
- snake in the grass
- snake in the tunnel
- Snake Island
- snakeless
- snakelike
- snake lizard
- snake mackerel
- snake melon
- snake-necked turtle
- snake-oil
- snake oil
- snake-phobia
- snake pit
- snake plant
- snake rake
- Snake River
- Snake River
- snakeroot
- snakes and ladders
- snake shot
- snake tail
- snake tart
- snake vine
- snake wine
- snakey
- snaky
- snow snake
- son of a snake
- stiletto snake
- Texas blind snake
- Texas garter snake
- Texas lined snake
- thirst snake
- thread snake
- three-step snake
- thunder snake
- tiger snake
- twig snake
- Ulmer's reed snake
- wampum snake
- wart snake
- water snake
- western rat snake
- whip snake
- word snake
Descendants edit
Translations edit
legless reptile
|
treacherous person
|
plumbing tool
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
Verb edit
snake (third-person singular simple present snakes, present participle snaking, simple past and past participle snaked)
- (intransitive) To follow or move in a winding route.
- 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Bournemouth (circa 1880)”, in RAIL, number 947, pages 59–60:
- Opened in June of that year [1880], the station was the southern terminus of the much-lamented Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (the S&D or 'Slow and Dirty'), which snaked its way down from Bath.
- (transitive, Australia, slang) To steal slyly.
- He snaked my DVD!
- (transitive) To clean using a plumbing snake.
- (US, informal) To drag or draw, as a snake from a hole; often with out.
- November 27 1835, N.B. St. John, letter to George Thompson
- his wife and children shall not be forced to flee from the hearth of a friend, lest they should be snaked out by men in civic authority
- November 27 1835, N.B. St. John, letter to George Thompson
- (nautical) To wind round spirally, as a large rope with a smaller, or with cord, the small rope lying in the spaces between the strands of the large one; to worm.
- (MLE) To inform; to rat.
- He says he didn't snake and I believe him.
Translations edit
to move in a winding path
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See also edit
Further reading edit
Anagrams edit
Middle English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Old English snaca, from Proto-West Germanic *snakō.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
snake (plural snakes or snaken or snake)
Descendants edit
References edit
- “snāke, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-03.